


The Meaning of Immortal

by Wandering_Shadows



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Immortal Skull is Immortal, M/M, Temporary Character Death, The Arcobaleno Really Should Listen, They're All Adults Now, mild Fon/Skull, post curse breaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wandering_Shadows/pseuds/Wandering_Shadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skull gets shot.  Fatally.  The other Arcobaleno freak out.  Then he sits up.  They proceed to freak out more.  Skull is confused because he told them he was immortal.</p><p>In other words, the one where Skull is actually immortal and thought the Arcobaleno knew.  They didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meaning of Immortal

The gunshot seemed to be extraordinarily loud.  The dull thud that followed was much quieter and yet it felt as though it reverberated down to the other six’s bones.  The shooter died almost before she realized her shot connected.

Reborn was already racing for Skull’s prone body before his bullet reached her; it did not matter.  Skull was his number one priority as the group’s healer.  He slid to his knees, Sun Flames that were more accustomed to ending lives already blazing with the intent to heal.  He knew he was too late.  No one could survive a bullet bursting through their head at that trajectory, but he had to try.

Even as Reborn slid to his knees, Verde was already covering them with a shield of hardened Lightning Flames.  From inside his barrier, Verde glared out at the battlefield.  Nothing was going to harm the two behind him.

Not that he had to worry for very long as the other Arcobaleno let their flames burst out.  All of them united in their desire to _maimkilldestroy._   The few enemies that were left died quickly, but not before realizing their mistake in attacking the world’s strongest flame users.

Verde lowered his shield when Lal and Colonnello approached, but he hesitated before turning around.  The absolute silence from Reborn and Skull was not a good sign.

Viper was also hesitant to get any closer.  They floated quietly off to the side.  If Skull was-no, no they would not go there.  He would be fine. Reborn would help him. 

Fon was struggling.  His normal control almost gone as his flames surged wildly inside him.  They wanted to be let loose, to destroy every last trace of the bastards who hurt his-no. Just Skull.  Never his. 

It was Lal who finally grabbed Reborn’s shoulder.

“Enough.  Reborn, enough.  He’s gone,” her breath hitched a little, “There’s nothing you can do.”

Reborn wanted to rage, to scream a Lal that he wouldn’t give up, but he knew she was right.  He had known as soon as Skull had gone down.  He had been dead before he hit the floor.  He let his flames die.  Then, he sat there staring down at Skull’s corpse, his shoulders slumped.  He had failed.

The other Arcobaleno felt Reborn’s flames go out and knew it meant the worst.  One of their own was dead.  Their reactions varied as they each expressed their grief in different ways.

Colonnello, who was the closest to Reborn besides Lal, stepped forward to grip Reborn’s shoulder hard in support before letting go.  He turned his back to Skull, unable to look at his prone form.  His face was utterly devoid of emotion.

Verde reached up with his left hand to cover his face.  His right clenched in a fist at his side.  “Shit,” he muttered quietly.  If his voice broke on the word, well, none of the others’ were in the right state of mind to notice.

Viper’s reaction was the hardest to see due to their body being almost completely covered by their clothing.  However, their shoulders were trembling just the slightest bit and, if one were to examine their face closely, they might notice tear tracks rolling down their cheeks.

Fon, on the other hand, had frozen.  Even his flames, which had previously been roiling beneath his skin, had stilled.  _It couldn’t be.  There was no way that Skull was-_ Fon couldn’t even bear to think the word, but how could he deny it? In the space of a few seconds, his entire world had been turned upside down and inside out.  He almost let a hysterical chuckle burst out of his chest because he always thought that people were merely exaggerating and being melodramatic when they described the death of their loved one, but here he was.  And dammit, he had never even told Skull because they had had time and there was no need to rush and _fuck_.  Now he never would.

And then, Skull groaned.  He blinked his eyes.  He sat up.  He opened his mouth.

“What happened?”

Reborn’s head shot up, eyes seemingly wider than humanly possible.  Lal Mirch’s grip on his shoulder tightened until it seemed his bones were creaking, but he didn’t even notice.  There was a quiet thump from Viper’s direction as they lost concentration and hit the ground.  Fon’s breath was trapped somewhere in his chest as both Verde and Colonnello whipped around to stare at what had previously been a very dead body.

Skull stared at them all, confused. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Colonnello shrieked.  This seemed to break the other Arcobaleno out of their shock as they all converged on Skull, each trying to talk over the other.  It was complete chaos and in the middle of it there was a very much alive and incredibly overwhelmed Cloud.

It took a long while before anything even resembling order was reestablished and even then, none of the Arcobaleno would allow themselves to be moved more than an arm’s length from Skull.  Which meant that every now and then one of their hands would reach out to touch him as though he might disappear at any point or it might turn out that he was only an illusion the whole time.  Although thoroughly weirded out by this point, Skull stopped trying to move away because at least they had all finally calmed down so they weren’t all talking over each other and Colonnello was no longer breaking their eardrums with his increasingly high pitched shrieking about zombies and ghosts and liches. 

“You were dead. Your brain was splattered all over the concrete. Your heart had stopped beating. _You were dead_.”  Reborn’s voice was a far cry from its usual steady cadence.  Actually, if Skull didn’t know better, he would say that his voice was verging on hysterical.  But, that couldn’t be right.  Reborn was never hysterical.

“Of course I was dead.  I got shot in the head,” Skull said, bemused.  “People don’t normally survive that sort of thing.  I mean, there are occasionally stories about people surviving headshots, but- “

“What do you mean, ‘Of course I was dead,’?! You don’t just get over being dead! That’s it, the end, nothing else! Dead is dead!”  This came from Lal who still hadn’t let go of Reborn, although her grip had loosened slightly.  Colonnello, meanwhile, looked like he was torn between wrapping Skull up in a hug and never letting him go or bolting for the nearest exit while shouting an exorcism.

Skull was still confused.  “Well, of course most people can’t come back from the dead.  That’s ridiculous, but I told you when we first met.  I’m immortal.  Death hates me.  I mean, I die all of the time.”  He looked around at all of their shocked faces (in the back of his mind he might or might not have been wishing for a camera to capture the looks on their faces).  “Haven’t you been to any of my shows?  It’s a good day if I don’t die from one of my stunts and I rarely have good days.”

This declaration did not seem to help.  If anything, his fellow Arcobaleno were looking even more unbalanced as though a light gust of wind could knock them over or, you know, that they were all having multiple, collective heart attacks. 

Skull continued to stare right back at them. 

“I don’t get why you’re all acting like this.  It’s not like this is the first time I’ve died in front of you guys.”

This got a reaction from all of them.

“WHAT?!” they roared in unison.

Skull answered nonchalantly, “Well, the first time, I think, was when I fell down the stairs not long after we were cursed.”

“We thought you just passed out,” a very pale Verde spoke up.

“Ha! If only.  No, I snapped my neck with that one.  Honestly, not the worst way to go.  It was actually rather quick, unlike some times…” Skull trailed off, oblivious to the horrified looks he was receiving.   “Then there was that time Reborn tried to cook-” 

Reborn cut him off, “I thought you just had food poisoning?!”

“Weeelll,” Skull dragged the word out, “you’re not wrong.  It was food poisoning, just very, very severe food poisoning.  Now that was an interesting way to go, let me tell you.  I hadn’t died from that before!” Skull smiled.

Reborn, on the other hand, was stricken with guilt.  Now he had not only failed to save Skull (ignoring the fact that Skull was alive and well and, apparently, immortal), he had also killed him.

Skull did not seem to be bothered by this in the slightest.  It seemed as though being killed by a friend was no big deal to him at all.  Even in the midst of their confusion, guilt, and horror, this did not sit well with the Arcobaleno.  Fon in particular was not pleased by this revelation.  Actually, Viper noticed almost absently, Fon looked about ready to bundle their strange Cloud up and protect him from _Reborn_.

Of course, Skull remained oblivious as he continued blathering on and on about different times that he had died in front of the others or times where they, either directly or indirectly, caused his demise.  Needless to say, none of the Arcobaleno made it out of that conversation without feeling horribly guilty as well as completely overprotective.  Skull still doesn’t quite understand why they went from casually causing him bodily harm to trying to keep him away from anything that might conceivably be a danger to his health, especially since they all know that he will be just fine anyway. 

The other major change that occurred due to this incident was that Fon finally approached Skull a week later to confess that he felt quite a bit more than friendship to Skull.  Again, Skull is not entirely sure why he chose to approach him then, but he was not complaining.  Fon could be a surprisingly sweet boyfriend (partner? lover?).  Yeah, things were looking pretty good in Skull’s book.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't mean for this to happen, but then RinRin and I were discussing ideas and I accidentally wrote a fic...
> 
> Anyway, look me up on Tumblr if you want. I'm there as saunters-vaguely-downwards.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Skull's mummy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14840738) by [Gingerspark (Phoenix_fire)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_fire/pseuds/Gingerspark)




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